Supply chain

Each year we spend around £1 billion with local, national and international suppliers.This year we have set out our sustainable supply chain strategy and appointed a dedicated sustainable supply chain manager to help carry it out. Our strategy is based on the Government’s flexible framework for sustainable supply chain set out in the national action plan ‘Procuring the Future’. The framework is sponsored by both Defra and the Treasury and balances economic, environmental and social considerations such as whole life costing, expenditure analysis and best value.

We are already using the procurement process to identify where we can improve sustainability criteria in our tendering process and to work more closely with our suppliers to improve their understanding of our requirements and sustainability objectives.

We are also closely involved in a programme to help other utility companies improve the management of their own supply chain carbon footprint.

In terms of our performance as a responsible customer, a useful measure is the percentage of payments made in accordance with agreed terms. For 2007/08 our performance was 77% of payments were made in accordance with agreed terms, this is an increase from last year (74%) and continues the positive trend for the last three years.  View performance table.

This improvement is due to an increased focus on compliance to contracts and an awareness and education programme with our key suppliers and among our own people. In the next 12 months we aim to continue this upward trend, bringing improvements to our payment processes.